The War on Imagination
by frodoschick
Summary: Imagine if all the villains in the world decided to band together and destroy childrens' imaginations. But now, it's real. It's a war. And we're not winning.
1. The Beginning of the War

I dreamed of this last night. Just sit back and enjoy. It's a mix of everything and everyone. There will be apperances by nearly every single villian in literature history (and they will be staying classical to their original stories) and almost every hero too. This is just the beginning. The war is starting...

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><p>Dedication: To all the authors and writers and everyone who gave me the imagination that I do.<p>

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><p>The explosions woke me. I shot up in bed, throwing aside the covers. I stumbled with my sleepy feet to the window. I yanked open the curtains and threw open the blinds. The now familiar explosions lit up the sky like fireworks on the 4th. I cursed, ("D'Arvit!"), and ran to the emergency button. I slammed my fist on the shiny red button. Instantly, alarms were sounding in every child's bedroom across the neighborhood of my division. My own alarm was blaring as I ran to my closet and grabbed my battle-gear. Struggling into it, the explosions got louder.<p>

How did it get to this, you ask? A 22-year-old gal getting into battle-gear in the middle of the night to go to battle against the mysterious forces that lurked outside my house? Well...it all started like this.

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><p>A Few Years Ago...<p>

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><p>Hook slammed his fist against the plans and papers on his desk. He grabbed them and threw them into the air, scattering the papers crazily as he stalked away, pacing his quaters. He cursed loudly as the maddening laughter of the children echoed across the lagoon. All day, all night, laughter, children, foiling his plans! And that ridiculous chant..."Faith, trust and pixie dust." Them and their stupid imagination!<p>

Hook stopped pacing for a second. That was it...wasn't it? Their blasted imagination! No matter what, he was always defeated by their imaginations. They used them to defeat him, again and again and again. And they forced the baby to be Hook...the baby! So easy to defeat a baby. He was not a baby.

"Smee!" He bellowed. His faithful coxsain dove into his quaters, stumbling in that bumpkin way that he had. Hook grabbed him by the front of that striped shirt and hauled him close. "I have had lightining strike my brain, dear Smee." He grinned gleefully. "The most genius idea."

"What is it, Captain?" Smee panted, struggling to gain footing on the wooden floor as his Captain hauled him upright.

"The children, Smee!" Hook smipered, gesturing grandly. "Those blasted children. With their ingenuity...where do you suppose they aquire it?"

"Uh, their brains?"

"No, you blithering idiot! Their imaginations!" He stalked over to the expansive windows that looked out over Neverland. His black heart was not moved by the beauty of the scene: moonlight glittering on the waves, the glint of fairies flittering in the trees, the slumbering Neverland sleepin peacefully. All he saw was the conjuring of thousands of children and their imaginations... "Those imaginations hold the key to everything!"

And in an instant, he knew just what to do.

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><p>It wasn't long after that when he got in touch with other villains from other stories and tales. They formed a group and with their combined efforts, they declared war on children and their imaginations. I was eighteen when it happened. I still remember that night when they made their first raid...<p>

It was a dark night, even the stars were hiding. I think they knew what was going to happen, but they couldn't warn us in time. I was staying up late that night because I was writing. It's an activity that I love doing at night when it's quiet and I can let my imagination run rampant. I dunno what made me look out my window that night. Maybe it was the sound of a beating heart that stirred me, maybe it was the rustling of the leaves out in the street. All I know is that when I looked out of my window, I knew something was wrong. Horridly wrong.

One by one, the kids around my neighborhood started snapping on their bedroom lights and screaming cries echoed through the streets. As I watched, men leaped out of their windows, grabbing what seemed to be the very night and they were hoisted up out of sight. I strained to see what was lifting them, but was interuppted by the ugliest face I had ever seen slamming against my own window. I admit it, I screamed. But then I smashed his face and the window with the bat my kid brother had left in my room earlier that summer.

As I realized that my kid brother wasn't screaming, I ran out of my room and down the hall, throwing open his door to see him sleeping peacefully, despite the screaming and crying from the other kids. I breathed a sigh of relief until I saw that his window was open. Mom always locked it and drew the blinds at night. I looked at my brother, then around the room, stepping across the floor lightly, trying to sense where the burgalar was. I heard a noise behind me and spun around, my fist aimed at throat height.

My fist stopped in midair, cause there was no-one there. I looked down automatically and nearly fainted. There was a little red-haired man in my brother's bedroom, all dressed in green, including his knickerbockers and buckled shoes. He looked like he had stepped out of a picture of leprechauns. He didn't even give me a second glance, he just hurried over to my brother.

"Just what in the Seven Hells do you think you're doing-?" I yelled but I was cut off by the little man sending me a withering glare.

"I'm with the L.E.P." He snapped, pulling a strange looking techno-gimzo out and starting what I could only guess would be a scan of my little brother's brain. "It's a war out there, Mud Maid."

"A war?" I hadn't heard anything on the news or Facebook...

"D'Arvit!" (That would be my first encounter with the curse word.) He stuffed the gizmo away, back into the invisible (I guessed) pouch on his back. "We've already lost him!"

My heart froze and when the...fairy dude turned and saw the look of horror and loss on my face, he shook his head. "Stupid Mud Maid. He's not dead."

"Then why did you say-?"

"We've lost him because the Others have already stolen his imagination."

I stared at him, not comprehending. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the pair of wings from the floor where he had dropped them. It looked like a jet pack, but with a pair of fairy-tale wings attached. "Look outside, Mud Maid. There's a lot of this going on." With that, he started up the wings and left, via the open window. I ran to it and looked out. In the middle of my street, there were a lot of the little green people all centering on a kinda command post of sorts. There was yelling and children were starting to run out and find out answers.

Well, I deserved them too. I shut and locked his window, drawing the blinds and letting him sleep. But why wasn't he waking up? I didn't want to wake him up and just let him lie. I snuck out and went back to my bedroom. My window was mysteriously fixed and I didn't really care why at the moment. I just grabbed a jacket and ran downstairs. The party in the street was still going on when I exited my house. Several of the neighborhood kids were wielding guns that were loaded with what looked like gumballs and ice-cream cones, shouting about "adult tyranny" or some crap like that.

A white canvas tent had been erected in the center of my street and I made a bee-line for it, weaving about the kids and teenagers, many of whom were starting to fight amongst themselves. It was starting to turn into a riot. I pushed open the flap door and stared at what I never thought could exist.

A centaur jumped when he noticed me, which I'm surprised he did with the magnitude of electrical equipment he had managed to stuff into the small confines. He was wearing a foil hat (didn't surprise me, for some reason) and chewing a carrot. "Just what do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"I want answers and this looked like the most likely place to get them." I snapped back, stepping in and letting the flap close behind me. "Some LEP guy said that my brother's imagination was stolen. What's he talking about?"

The centaur turned back to the many flashing monitors and beeping dials and switches. "Answers huh. Well, we don't know what's going on fully, but someone's stealing children's imaginations. We down in the L.E.P Headquaters in Haven got a strange transmission earlier and when we finally decoded it, we rushed right up. Apparently, someone named Hook has worked up a bunch of people and they've gotten together to steal childrens' imaginations. They called it war."

I let it sink in. "Hook. Captain Jas. Hook." He was fictional. Then again, I was talking to a centaur. Who was I to argue? "Okay, so Captain Hook is being a douche again. What's keeping Peter from stopping him?"

"Who?" The centaur asked absently as he tended to several beeping messages all at once. "I dunno, Mud Maid, but I've got reports of stolen imaginations all across the world."

I sat down in a swivel chair that was a little short for me, but worked. I scooted up to the monitors and read them all as quickly as I could. Hong Kong, Paris, Indonesia, Texas, Canada...the places were everywhere, the kids all ages. It was war...an all out war. And we were unprepared. I stood up and exited the tent, knowing someone had to tell the mobs.

I waved my arms and tried to be heard above the screamin and yells, but it wasn't working. A sudden loud bellow from the person beside me silenced the crowd. Yeah, they'd listen to the person who was yelling as loud as a stadium announcer. Clutching my hands to my ears, I looked in shock at the slip of a guy that was standing next to me, dressed in long black robes. He pointed a stick of wood at his throat and shouted "QUIETUS!". His throat gleamed for a moment, then he looked at me and smiled and said in a normal tone of voice, "Tell them what you know, Miss."

"A wizard, okay then." My mind was quickly adapting to the fact that fictional stuff was turning more and more real. "Listen everyone! This is really serious! Imaginations are being stolen!"

"How?" shouted a few of the crowd, getting restless again. I shrugged.

"No idea!" The crowd started booing. I held up my hands and the kids all kinda quieted down. "But I do know this. Hook's the one behind this!"

Unsurprisingly, the kids automatically accepted the fact that a fictional villain had done the evil deeds of the night. What had taken me nearly a half hour to accept, these kids were already ready to fight. It was inspiring and frightening all at once. I decided then and there to be at the forefront of the now Rebellion.

I spent the next week working with the KND (Kids Next Door) in order to set up an alarm system so that when a raid was happening, we could wake up every single kid in a matter of seconds, learning about this war and meeting with the heads of the Rebellion.

I admit, during the day, it was as if nothing had happened. I went to school and work, the kids played in the neighborhood. My kid brother didn't draw anymore and dove into his school work with a fervor that I had never seen in him. At night, a different world emerged. Fairies were suddenly real and I was talking to that centaur on a nightly basis, getting more intel. After that first raid, there was a long lull, the Others probably sizing us up. I met Peter Pan and planned the lock-down of Neverland. I met Mister Willy Wonka himself and his apprentice Charlie. Mister Wonka sympathized with the children and he vowed to keep his factory villain free as well as to provide supplies to the troops.

I didn't know how bad things were...until I met with the Others. And their leaders.

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><p>Review, please.<p> 


	2. Meet the Badies

I dreamed of this last night. Just sit back and enjoy. It's a mix of everything and everyone. There will be apperances by nearly every single villian in literature history (and they will be staying classical to their original stories) and almost every hero too. This is just the beginning. The war is starting...

* * *

><p>Dedication: To all the authors and writers and everyone who gave me the imagination that I do.<p>

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><p>As practically the only "adult" in the ranks of the Rebellion, I had my share of public attention. The kids were constantly watching me, listening to me and maintaining that I was going to turn out to be evil just like every other teen that they knew of. But they just didn't get it; imagination was, and still is, the most important thing to me. As an artist and actress and writer, I needed my imagination and it was an outrage that people thought that they could just go out and steal them from innocent children.<p>

We were getting close to narrowing down the list of villains that were at the head of the Other Organization. We all knew that Hook was one of them, extensive spying by the KND had shown that the tiger from the Jungle Book and another guy from some other book were heading up the ground operations and Snoopy had confirmed that the Red Baron was directing the flights. Curse you, Red Baron!

It was another week, I had two tests in school and my boss cut my hours because of "classes" (not really). I was walking home from the library with a giant green bag brimming with new books, when a limousine pulled up next to me. It's windows were tinted and it was too long for a prom limo. That and it wasn't prom season. And it was the middle of the day. D'Arvit, as Foaly liked to say...

I turned a corner and they had to keep on going (thank you, one-way streets). I swiftly ducked down an alley and another side street and turned onto a main street. Only to be grabbed as soon as my feet hit the sidewalk. "D'Arvit!" I yelled, swinging my book bag at the captor, fighting as hard as I could. But the bag was wrenched away from me and I was dragged into the gaping maw of the limousine. As soon as they had me in, they slammed the door and sped off with me in the backseat.

As my butt hit the buttery leather I knew that I was useless to struggle. For one, the bodyguard was HUGE! Tall, muscles, bald head, blue diamond tattoo...his aura just screamed professional killer, guard and intimidation. He held her books in one giant fist. I laughed sheepishly as she looked past him to the skinny pale youth that was sitting next to him, sipping at a sparkling water in a wine glass. He nodded in a superior way at me. Right next to him was another man, this one was scary. In a bad way. A _very_ bad way. He wasn't just pale, he was nearly translucent. he leaned forward and I could see that his eyes were like black pools, that seemed to just go on for ever and ever and ever...

The next thing I knew, I was sitting in front of a long table in a large room, filled to the brim with people and the air was heavy with the tension and evil. I shuddered and coughed, feeling like I was breathing for the first time in nearly an hour. What had happened? Then I knew it, that scary guy had been Dracula...he had hypnotized me. I quickly felt my neck for puncture marks.

"No need for that, my dear." hissed a sibliant woman's voice from the table. "You are unharmed. For now."

"What's going on?" I yelled at the table of shadowy figures, making plenty of mental notes.

"You have been recruited." said another familiar voice that was accompanied by the glint of a hook. The bastard himself.

"Yeah, well, for what?" I snarked, folding my arms and glaring at the table. Thatta girl! Fake a left.

"For our Organization, child." rasped a voice from nearly directly in front of me. From the shadows of the table, a long, thick snake slithered out. I froze. The snake slowly wound it's way towards my feet (which started twitching). "Nagini." The snake paused, then slithered back to her Master. "You're most welcome here."

Okay, now I was scared brainless. The Darkest Wizard of this age was heading this thing. Oh..._bugger_...

"All it takes is swearing of loyalty and service." Voldemort's voice hissed from the shadows. "Then you shall reap all of the rewards."

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my teeth from chattering as I answered. "What kind of rewards are we talking here? Like actually monetary benefit or just a sense of helping the greater bad?" I had to give myself props. I actually sounded like I was considering it.

"Any wish. Any wish that you dream of in the deepest darkest part of your heart." said the woman again. "We shall make it come true."

My heart pounded. Any wish? "Any at all?" If I could have any wish at all...

"Any at all." cooed Hook from his shadow. I heard them all lean forward. I sat there, thinking. They obviously didn't know about me being in cahoots with the kids. They didn't know that I was part of the Rebellion. They thought they had just grabbed another smart teenager from the streets and were going to have another minion to do their dirty work. But I couldn't fight my way out, there were waaaaaay too many of them.

"I-I'm sorry, but I had too much soda at the library. May I use the restroom?"

They all sat back, I think shocked by what I said. They whispered amongst themselves for a moment, then a black skinned elf came up, dressed in nothing but a pair of pants and a work vest. He motioned for me to get up and we walked out of the circle of light and through the crowd of villains, both familiar and strange. He led me through a hallway to a door. He pointed to it and said something that I didn't understand.

I shrugged at him talking and opened the door and went in. I nodded at the bathroom, suitably impressed. The walls and ceiling were made of solid wood, mahagony it looked like. The floor was marble, not tile, and was dead white. The pedastal sink was like something from Rome and a vase of black roses sat on the decorative stool near the marble and gold toliet. Talk about an expensive place to poop. And thank the gods, a window.

I hurried over to it, after turning on the water in the sink. It was frosted glass and two-paned. That meant that one slid up. Or down. I wasn't picky. As long as it worked. I found the lock on the window frame (solid gold, again) and tried unlocking it. It didn't go. Okay, it was just stuck. I pulled my lighter out from a pant pocket and quickly flicked it to life, heating the golden lock. When it started glowing, I took the flame away and (I know this is stupid) grabbed the lock, jerking it. This time the metal gave and with burned fingers, I pushed up the window pane.

I heard a knock at the door and quickly slid up and over the window. Stupid me again, I hadn't looked before I leaped. Now I was dropping more than three stories. What a stupid way to die. I saw a tree coming at me and shielded my face. Crashing through the branches with all the grace of a dying swan, I slammed into a thick branch and flopped off like a rag doll. I caught sight of a cat grinning down at me when I landed. It vanished as the breath left my lungs.

As I lay there, stunned, I could hear something getting closer. Problem, I couldn't move. The person just kept getting closer and I couldn't move. I could feel myself starting to panic as I wrestled for breath. Then the person came into my sight and I nearly screamed my breath away. It was a big male werewolf. Of course, he looked human at the moment, there was no moon. But I could tell because of his decidedly animalistic eyes, his hairy face and arms, the way his shoulders were too broad for his body and the way he was stalking in the grass. I mean, what else could he be?

"Just what do ye think ye're doin' 'ere?" He asked in a thick Irish accent.

"Uh...getting a tan?" I quipped, finally able to sit up. I brushed off all the leaves and small twigs off of my clothes and hair and quickly stood up, looking up at the open window that I had fallen out of.

"Tryin' to learn to fly?" He asked, looking up too.

"None of your business." I snapped, looking around the expansive garden. There were red and black roses everywhere as well as a corner plot that looked suspisciously poisonous. This yard was so big I couldn't see the walls. I shook my head, cursed under my breath and started walking in one direction. To my annoyance and paranoia, the werewolf followed me. "Why are you following me?"

He shrugged. "I've just as much right ta be here as ye do."

I actually had no right to be there at all. "Whatever, just where's the gate? I'm trying to run an errand for..." I looked about hurriedly and spotted red roses. "The Red Queen." She probably was here. Why else would there be a giant hedge maze in the middle of suberbia? And that would also explain the vanishing cat.

He gave me the once over with his eyes and then growled deeply. I backed up from him slightly. He snarled then leaped for me. I dodged and ran. I have never run so fast in my life. But he was keeping up right with me and with an growling oath, he tackled me to the ground. We rolled down a slight hill and he pinned me under him. I struggled, but he didn't let me go. My heart was going, I was sweating, I was panicking-

"I'm actually undercover." he whispered into my ear, keeping us hidden behind a bush. "I'm here to see what's going on in that house." (More of a mansion, with five floors, three balconys that I could see and these huge rolling grounds.)

"Well, bloody well done on scaring the pants off me." He nearly had too, that roll down the hill had ripped clean through my jeans.

"I know who you are, Diana. You're one of the leaders of la Resistance."

"Funny, I just know it as the Rebellion."

"Same thing." He shrugged. "Point is, I'm just pretending to be on their side. I could be your spy."

"I'd have to talk to everyone else about it first, dude. I'm not the one in charge."

"From what I hear, you are."

I shrugged. "Kids will say anything. Now let me go, I gotta get outta here."

He nodded. "I know the way. But we'll have to make it look like you escaped."

"Okay, tell me exactly where to go and I'll get a head start and you can chase me down." I heard whistles and alarms from the inside of the house. My escape had finally been noticed. "I gotta get going. Like NOW."

"Fine, fine. You gotta go around the maze, take a right at the black rose bush by the fountain and go straight along the path until you get to the wall. There will be a small door there, it's used for the delivery men."

"Thank God for small favors."

"Hey, how do you think I got in here?"

Now I was hearing wild animal growls and shouts from another part of the grounds. "Nice to know. I gotta go. Like, two seconds ago."

"Got it. I hope to see you again, Diana."

"Yeah, you too, uh-"

"Brad." His eyes laughed at me as he grinned. Dang...he was cute. In a wild, wolfish way. "Bradford Krone."

"Nice to meet you. Hope we don't die."

I suddenly kicked him off and leaped up, running for all I was worth. I dashed across the lawn to the hedge maze and ran alongside it. I could hear Brad howling behind me and heard him start to give chase. I picked up the speed and rounded a corner of the maze. I heard the forces at the house start to give chase. They were following Brad. I prayed that none of them were faster than him. Or me for that matter.

I quickly skidded a right around the rose bush next to the fountain (which had a gruesome statue of a tiger mauling a kid) and dashed along the pebbled path. I could hear Brad howling behind me with more howls answering him. He was good at being undercover.

"Stop her! Catch her!" I heard Hook yelling from somewhere behind me. I wanted to turn around and run to him and grab him around the throat and throttle him until he gave me back my brother's imagination. But there was who knows how many villians between him and me. I couldn't stop running. Finally! There was the wall...and the gate! It looked locked. Well, I had no time to stop. I squared my shoulders and crashed right through. it's funny, so many villians and yet no-one checked the flimsy gate lock.

I was finally out of the house of the Organization, but that didn't mean I could stop running. They'd be out of the main gate sooner or later and with reinforcements. I kept running until I reached a kid's house. From there I was able to contact KND Airbase and get an air-lift out of there. It took me an hour to get back home and it would take me even longer to explain at the library that my books had been stolen.

But when I got home, I put my city on lock-down. No one was getting in or out without a fight. I personally called Peter Pan, Willy Wonka, the White Queen, Glinda the Good and all the heroes who needed to know. We weren't dealing with some run-of-the-mill-villain-wanna-be-take-over. This was the real deal. They meant business.

That night was the worst raid yet. They struck at midnight and more than three thousand children lost their imaginations during it.

It just made me more determined than ever to fight back. But first, we had to protect the kids. And what better place...than Neverland?

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><p>Review, please.<p> 


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